Good Day!

In the mid-1980s, my grandparents purchased a new radio for their kitchen. It was silver and was a second cousin to the boom-boxes everyone seemed to want to carry around on their shoulder at the time. It had a tape deck and one giant circular speaker -- unlike the two speakers on the shoulder-version. For as long as they had it, it sat on the kitchen table almost exclusively.

The only station I ever heard it play was a small AM outfit from down the road. They broadcast stuff that grandparents are supposed to like -- big bands, local news with weather and agricultural reports, happy birthday dedications and the Star Spangled Banner when they went off the air at sunset. Most importantly, they broadcast Paul Harvey.

Although I've got a degree in Radio & Television hanging on my wall, I'm not the radio listener that I used to be. As a former broadcaster myself, I'm not even doing my part as a listener of radio. I still have an empty Arbitron notebook left over from the fall ratings period. I know. I promised them I'd fill it out. I've already spent the three bucks they paid me. Shame. So, with my radio listening restricted to the 15 minutes to and from work... I don't catch much Paul Harvey these days. I should remedy that.

Something struck me funny this morning and I logged onto PaulHarvey.Com. Hearing "stand by for news!" and "now page two" sent me back in time. I could have been sitting at the round wooden table in my grandparents' kitchen listening to the noon report of news after finishing up lunch. But my grandfather has been dead 18 years and my grandmother, too, for more than a decade now. Their house long since sold, the round table now in my mother's house and the silver radio forever missing. Yet, Harvey's cadence and intonation seem unchanged.

Sometimes, time does find a way to stand still.

As we're less than 12 hours from flipping the calendar to a new year, I wonder which things will hold their ground and which ones will fade away. Life is all about change... And change is often good... But it's nice when everything doesn't have to change all at once.